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West Ham v Liverpool preview: Reds big favourites for London trip

Liverpool travel south to West Ham on Saturday, looking to make it consecutive wins in the Premier League.

We face the Hammers at 5:30PM at the London Stadium, the venue we handed out a 4-0 thrashing last term which helped confirm Champions League qualification.

Liverpool are currently three points off fourth placed Chelsea, so need another good result before the international break to put pressure on those ahead of us.

West Ham haven’t earned a Premier League win since September, and breaking that streak against Liverpool will be a huge ask. Liverpool just cruised past Huddersfield 3-0 and won their last Champions League game 7-0 over Maribor, while West Ham are in the middle of significant injury crisis, particularly in defence.

Winston Reid, Jose Fonte, and James Collins are all questionable for Saturday, and Pablo Zabaleta is suspended after picking up five yellow cards. As West Ham let a (perhaps historically) bad Crystal Palace team gnaw back a two-goal lead, there’s seemingly no depth of defensive incompetence they can’t plumb. When they come up against a Liverpool attack that’s stacked on paper and starting to click on the pitch, the results could be ugly. Expect a road win for the Reds, who are currently massive, yet deserving -150 favourites according to sportsbettingdime despite playing away.

However, Liverpool will be without Sadio Mane and perhaps Coutinho too – with the Brazilian scoring two goals in the same fixture last season. Adam Lallana and Nathaniel Clyne remain long term absentees, so Slaven Bilic isn’t the only one with players missing.